


Kakashi's Demons

by AuroraBeam



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraBeam/pseuds/AuroraBeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi has a setback and Gai notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kakashi's Demons

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after reading a post of the tumblr user rockingthegraveyard. You can read the post over here: http://rockingthegraveyard.tumblr.com/post/133706985730/rockingthegraveyard-what-if-kakashi-had-a
> 
> Thanks to my betas, Ana and Cecil!

Things had been going well for a long time. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that at one point it would go wrong again. He just hadn’t wanted to think about it, perfectly happy with the way things were. Or at least as happy as Hatake Kakashi could ever be. At this moment he could barely remember what that had felt like. After all these years they were back.

His demons had come back to haunt him. 

Sometimes he knew it wasn’t real, sometimes he didn’t. However, even when he realized it wasn’t real he still started washing his hands. He couldn’t help it, it just felt too real. He could remember Rin’s face, he could remember the way she had looked at him, the way she had whispered his name for the last time, “Kakashi.” His chidori had made so much noise, like a thousand birds chirping right next to him, but he had heard her speak. He had heard her speak one last time. 

“Kakashi.” 

The voice that had haunted him for so long had returned.

“Kakashi.”

It wasn’t real, he knew it wasn’t real. He knew it, but his arm had started shaking. His right arm that had pierced through her chest, the arm that killed her. 

“Kakashi.”

Abruptly he stood up and walked to his tiny bathroom. He just had to wash his hands, it would be okay after that. He just had to clean his hands and it would be over. He could go back to sleep and tomorrow he would wake up and everything would be alright again. 

He just had to wash his hands, just one time. One time and everything would be okay again.

One time had turned into many times. One minute he would be okay and the next his hands would feel dirty. Dirty with all the blood. Rin’s blood. The nights were the worst, he had to get up multiple times, trying to get rid of the feeling on his hands, but every time the same thing happened. It wouldn’t wash off. 

Being awake so many hours started to affect him. He was used to having few hours’ sleep, but it was getting out of hand. People would start to notice. His team would notice. It was only a matter of time before someone would. 

“My Rival!” 

Kakashi had to stop himself from grabbing a kunai and attacking. He had been so consumed in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Gai coming. Things were really getting out of hand. 

He took a deep breath, “Yo.” 

The greeting was enough to send Gai into one of his speeches about how cool his rival was and Kakashi tuned out again. Gai could go on for hours, better to wait until he actually said something important.  
A while later he had somehow ended up agreeing to Gai’s plan to have dinner together and now he was sitting at Gai’s kitchen table watching the other man cook. Everything was going fine, until he heard the chirping of birds and his arm started shaking. He excused himself and went to the bathroom, trying to appear calm. 

When he came back Gai had put the food on the table and they started eating. Most of the time Gai was proudly telling about the progress his students had made. They were getting stronger every single day, were Kakashi’s students getting stronger? They should let their students spar someday to see which team was stronger. All the while he kept his eyes fixated on his food plate. No matter what people said about Gai, at least he respected Kakashi’s privacy and gave him the chance to eat normally. 

After dinner they did the dishes, Gai washing and Kakashi drying. Everything was okay and Kakashi was just thinking about how he enjoyed spending the evening with Gai when their hands touched when he was handed a spoon. 

Kakashi fixated all his attention on the spoon, not having to look at Gai to know how the other’s eyes had widened. He was waiting for Gai to say something, waiting for the moment he had to flee because he really couldn’t talk about this. He was waiting and waiting and then he was handed a fork. 

His eyes widened and he carefully looked at Gai, only to see that the man had continued doing the dishes. He hadn’t said a thing. Could it be possible that he hadn’t noticed Kakashi’s hands being dry? That he hadn’t felt how rough they were after all the washing? 

When they were done with the dishes Gai told Kakashi he would walk him home because he had something he needed to do. Kakashi didn’t object. At some point Gai told Kakashi to wait for him when he entered a store. When he got back Kakashi couldn’t see what he had bought because it was in a bag. He didn’t ask either. 

Gai followed him into his apartment, ranting about how he had forgotten to tell Kakashi something about Lee’s progress. When he started talking Kakashi realized he had heard this already, but decided to stay quiet. It was getting darker and darker and while Gai’s voice helped Kakashi for a while he finally reached the point where he heard her voice again. Mechanically he stood up and walked to his bathroom. He liked Rin’s voice, but not when he heard it like this, he didn’t want to hear her last word, his name. 

“Kakashi.”

Kakashi stiffened. It hadn’t been Rin’s voice that called out to him. He stood deadly still, except for his arm that was shaking. Then something was pushed in his hand, in a reflex he accepted it, before continuing to the bathroom. Once he was alone he finally looked down to see what Gai had given him. 

Lotion. 

When Kakashi reentered the living room where Gai was waiting he hadn’t washed his hands. Instead he had applied the lotion. Somehow it had made the voice go away. Gai was looking at him, unusually serious. However, once he had settled down next to him Gai started talking again. Not about the lotion, nor about Kakashi. Gai simply talked about other things, feeling satisfied when he saw Kakashi starting to relax again. 

The next few days Kakashi saw Gai every day. They would greet each other, have some small talk and they would go on their way again. Even though Konoha wasn’t that big and they had to be in the same places a lot of the time Kakashi knew the meetings weren’t accidental, but that was okay.

A week later Gai challenged his rival, not to a typical Gai challenge, but to arm wrestling. Gai seemed a little too serious, but became his usual self the moment he grabbed Kakashi’s hand. They looked each other in the eye after Kakashi had won the match and they both knew it was okay.


End file.
